Berlin Self-Guided Walking Audio Tour

The walk stop by stop: Alexanderplatz, Museum Island, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag

10 stops · about 65 min walking · start: Alexanderplatz · finish: Reichstag Building

Alexanderplatz starts the walk, with St Mary's Church and the Neptune Fountain a few minutes away. The Palace Bridge then takes the route over the Spree to Berlin Cathedral and to the Altes Museum on the Lustgarten, after which it drops south to Gendarmenmarkt. Unter den Linden and the edge of the Tiergarten lead west past the Goethe Monument to the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag Building closes the walk. A different opening stop or another order can be set in the app, and no stop asks for an entry ticket.

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1. 

   1AlexanderplatzStart

   The square is named after Tsar Alexander I of Russia, who visited Berlin in 1805, and it gave its title to Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. Its present look comes from the East German redesign of the 1960s, which added the World Clock in 1969 and the Television Tower nearby.

2. 

   2St Mary's Church (Marienkirche)

   St Mary's was first mentioned in 1292 and is the oldest parish church in Berlin still used for worship. In its tower hall is a Dance of Death mural more than 22 metres long, painted around 1484, the year of a plague, and the pulpit was made by Andreas Schlüter in 1703.

3. 

   3Neptune Fountain

   Reinhold Begas created this fountain in 1891: the sea god Neptune sits in the middle, surrounded by four women who stand for the rivers Rhine, Elbe, Oder and Vistula. It first stood on Schlossplatz in front of the Berlin Palace and was moved here, between St Mary's Church and the Red Town Hall, in 1969.

4. 

   4Palace Bridge (Schlossbrücke)

   Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed this bridge, built in 1821–1824, to link Unter den Linden with the royal palace. Its eight marble groups, added between 1847 and 1857, show Nike and Athena guiding young warriors, and in GDR times it was renamed Marx-Engels-Brücke until 1991.

5. 

   5Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom)

   Emperor Wilhelm II had the old cathedral pulled down in 1893, and Julius Raschdorff's new Protestant cathedral with its great dome was consecrated in 1905. Beneath it lies the Hohenzollern crypt with dozens of coffins of the Prussian royal family, and 270 steps lead up to the walkway around the dome.

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6. 

   6Altes Museum

   Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Old Museum, completed in 1830, was the first museum on Museum Island and one of the first purpose-built museum buildings in Europe. Its front of 18 Ionic columns faces the Lustgarten, and the huge granite bowl at the foot of the steps was commissioned by King Frederick William III in 1826.

7. 

   7Gendarmenmarkt

   The square takes its name from the Gens d'armes, a Prussian cuirassier regiment that kept its stables here until 1773. It is framed by the French and the German Church, both given matching domed towers by Carl von Gontard in 1785, with Schinkel's Konzerthaus of 1821 between them.

8. 

   8Goethe Monument

   This marble monument by the sculptor Fritz Schaper was unveiled in 1880 in the Tiergarten, a short walk from the Brandenburg Gate. Goethe stands on a tall pedestal, and around its base sit three allegorical figures representing lyric poetry, drama and science.

9. 

   9Brandenburg Gate

   Carl Gotthard Langhans built the gate in 1788–1791 for King Frederick William II, modelling it on the Propylaea of the Acropolis in Athens. Napoleon carried Johann Gottfried Schadow's Quadriga off to Paris in 1806, it returned in 1814, and during the division of Berlin the gate stood right by the Wall.

10. 

    10Reichstag BuildingFinish

    Paul Wallot's parliament building was completed in 1894, and the inscription Dem deutschen Volke, To the German People, was added in 1916. Gutted by fire in 1933 and badly damaged in 1945, it was rebuilt by Norman Foster with a glass dome, and the Bundestag has met here since 1999.